Children’s Alliance, a Washington state lobby group, has announced its legislative agenda for 2014, which includes calling on state legislators in Olympia to restore state food assistance. The group will also urge lawmakers to advance early learning policies and investments, expand children’s access to oral health care, and raise revenues to help low-income families and children of color.

“We’ll be working on fully restoring the state’s EBT (food stamps) program for immigrant families, which was cut in half two years ago,” stated Adam Hyla, communications director for Children’s Alliance. The program, called State Food Assistance, helps an estimated 12,000 children — many of them in the API community, said Hyla. (end)